“Every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or an antelope – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” – African Proverb

A former co-worker of mine had this taped to his cubicle wall. He ran marathons. The quote made sense for him. In terms of running.

This morning, I thought about the quote in terms of writing. And I paraphrased it thus:

Every morning, an aspiring author wakes up. She knows she must out-write her last story, or it will be rejected. Every morning, a bestselling author wakes up. She knows she must out-write her last bestseller or she could get passed over for the debut author. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the aspiring author or the bestseller, when the sun comes up, you’d better be writing.